1. Field of the Invention
At least one aspect of the present invention generally relates to methods and systems for attributing applicable condition code(s) for field claims and, in particular, to methods and systems for codifying field claims.
2. Background Art
In the automotive industry, as well as other industries, field information is commonly collected and input into a computer database as a part of the process of responding to customer vehicle concerns, i.e., warranty claims and field concerns (collectively referred to as field claims). Field information can include technician text comments provided by a technician that responded to the field claim and customer text comments provided by a vehicle customer detailing the nature of the field claim. Field information can also include other information relevant to the field claim, including, but not limited to: Model Year, Model Name, Model or Style Number, Product Identification or Serial Number, Date of Repair, Size, Supplier of the Part, and State or Province. The typical computer database can include at least about 40,000 field claim records.
Recently, it has become crucially important to analyze field claims, and in particular identify the type and effect of vehicle failure(s) that result in the field claim. Ford Motor Company utilizes the Analytical Warranty System (AWS), in part, to search the text comments (technician and customer) of field claim records to analyze field claims. AWS can execute a filtered search on the text comments for specific keywords. For example, if the keywords are spring and tire, the filter returns the field claim records in which both keywords are included in both the technician and customer text comments.
AWS does not have the ability to identify the type and effect of vehicle failure(s) for field claims. AWS can assign a customer concern code to each field claim. The customer concern code provides a general characterization of repair(s) by customer symptom, but does not provide the technical reason for the repair(s), i.e., brake pedal spongy-air in brake lines, pulls left-caster setting biased left. Consequently, AWS requires that an extra step be performed in order to accomplish this type of analysis. Typically, assessors perform this extra step by analyzing each field claim. For a relatively large database of field claim records, i.e., at least about 40,000 records, this analysis commonly requires a substantial amount of assessors. Since these assessors identify failure modes based on individual interpretations of the text comments, the results are sometimes inconsistent. Additionally, the assessors cannot conduct complex combination word searches on the text comments. Moreover, a substantial amount of computer processing resources is expended by analyzing each warranty claim individually.
A computer-implemented method and system is needed that can identify the type and effect of vehicle failure(s) for field claims using complex word search combinations. The method and system should include the ability to attribute applicable condition code(s) to field claims and codify the field claims with the most severe of the applicable condition code(s).